To all our former and future students, faculty and staff, as well as their families, SpaCIE wishes you health, peace, love and joy this holiday season and throughout the year 2023. All the best from Madrid!
We would like to extend these wishes to everyone, especially those who suffer from the unjust violence of war. May 2023 bring peace to the world!
Dear Students, Partners, and Friends,
SpaCIE wishes you very happy holidays!
Best regards from Madrid,
SpaCIE
Let’s keep learning from someone who actually studied abroad! Let’s see this experience: https://theblondeabroad.com/10-reasons-studying-abroad-is-worth-it/
It is high time that you add more diversity to your social group! Meet classmates from all over the world and start mingling with the locals. Nothing helps you understand the world better than getting an up close and personal view of cultures from around the globe.
Put yourself out there to make meaningful connections and be sure to keep in touch after you go.
When you go study abroad in France, you can easily hop on a train to Germany or get a cheap flight to Spain. A whole new part of the world will suddenly be in your reach, making it easy and inexpensive to take mind-blowing trips every weekend.
Sitting in a classroom and clicking through language learning apps gets old quickly, but sharing secrets and laughing with new friends will bring your second language to life. Master a new tongue by immersing yourself! It is one of the best ways to become fluent.
Growing up in Southern California, Spanish was always very prevalent, but once I studied abroad during college, I fully immersed myself and became conversationally fluent!
Maybe you are an expert surfer or a natural flamenco dancer. You will never know until you try! When you study abroad, you encounter so many new things and find yourself in places you could have never imagined. Try new things to find out what you truly love.
If you are thinking about continuing your education, studying abroad will be a major asset. Fortune really does favor the bold. Graduate schools look for students who push themselves and your career will be more attainable with a broader view of the world.
It’s not just grad school admissions teams that are impressed by studying abroad. The experience also looks great on your resume. Nothing says “independent go-getter” like traveling to the other side of the planet and carving out a place for yourself.
A new country means new foods. Every trip to the grocery store will be an adventure and you will discover new dishes each time you go out to eat. You might even get around to learning some impressive recipes.
When you leave behind everything that is comfortable, you will find yourself in some unnerving situations. You will get to put yourself out there and take risks. You might get homesick and feel ready to run home to your mother—but you won’t.
You will overcome everything that, at first, seems so overwhelming and realize that you can face any challenge in your way.
Sometimes you need to take a step back to get a view of what is really going on around you. After you see another way of living, you will have a new perspective on your own home and learn to appreciate what makes it unique.
Studying abroad will help you find yourself. Leaving your home and your family means you have to rely on yourself more than ever before. By expanding the boundaries of your world and exploring new countries and cultures on your own, you will see a side of yourself that you didn’t know you had.
Source: https://theblondeabroad.com/
Nothing better than learning from someone who actually studied abroad! Let’s check, for instance, https://theblondeabroad.com/10-reasons-study-abroad/ experience:
First thing’s first! Why did I initially decide to Study Abroad? To travel!
I had never been out of the country (with the exception of Southern California’s neighboring “state” Mexico). Studying Abroad gave me the opportunity to see the world, without compromising my education, all while I was still in school.
To be perfectly honest I was really just looking for a reason to travel, but couldn’t find a way to justify taking a break from school to wander off somewhere in the world.
Solution: Study Abroad, see the world, get college credits! I decided to go to Spain.
While there, I would attend my Advanced Spanish Language class Monday-Friday and each weekend we had excursions organized to take us to other cities in Spain. I ended up earning something like 9 college units in one month. (In case you’re wondering, that’s more than half the units I would earn each semester!)
The education not only came from my Intensive Spanish Language Program, but through experiencing the culture.
The whole experience was so much more than I had bargained for. Not only were the cultural excursions eye-opening, but I had the opportunity to live with Spanish families.
During my one month program in Spain, I lived with a host family for two weeks in Salamanca, Spain and then another host family for two weeks in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain.
Living with a family from another culture truly opened my eyes. The son of my host family in El Puerto was deaf. My Spanish was terrible but ultimately it didn’t matter. We still found a way to communicate.
My own misconceptions melted away as I realized that language didn’t create a barrier between cultures.
Before studying abroad I was still living at home and attending a community college. I spent 18 YEARS in the same small town in Southern California. I needed to experience something bigger than my own backyard.
I saved all my pennies and paid my own way for the Study Abroad program. After living in Spain and then backpacking around Europe (at times alone) I realized just how capable I truly was on my own.
You become incredibly close with the other students that you are abroad with. Living with them, studying with them, partying with them and ultimately sharing the entire experience with them. Regardless of your differences, you come together and it makes everything so much sweeter.
Is long-term travel right for you? I think the biggest hurtle for some people to overcome is homesickness or even culture shock. While a life of travel sounds appealing it isn’t for everyone!
I know that, even now, after all of my travels there can be loneliness with travel. Studying abroad is the perfect way to get your first taste for independent travel.
After my first trip abroad, I didn’t want to go home… obviously.
I was working full time while in college so I couldn’t take off for a full year, or even a semester, to Study Abroad. Instead, I was able to take a summer off and enroll in an accelerated month long program in Spain.
After the program, I was able to spend another month backpacking around Europe. Talk to your school’s Study Abroad Program to see what they have to offer! And even if your University doesn’t offer the program you want, do what I did and see what a Community College has to offer.
There really is a program for everyone.
If you are interested in learning a second language Studying Abroad is a must. The best way to learn a language is to fully immerse yourself in it! After a month in Spain, countless hours in a Spanish class, a non-English speaking teacher and living with a Spanish speaking host family… I had no choice but to learn the language!
I learned more in one month in Spain than I had in 4 years of High School and College Spanish classes.
This is obviously debatable but, speaking from personal experience, I firmly believe that by Studying Abroad you have a leg up on other students who haven’t. Employers want to see that you are well rounded and have the capacity to do more than just study hard and get good grades.
Plus, if you’re adding a second language to your skill-set your “hire-ability” becomes leaps and bounds greater! In every interview I’ve ever had the topic of the conversation always turns to my Study Abroad and Spanish language experience.
Ultimately, Studying Abroad will not hurt your chances of getting a job. Like the effect it has on your resume, the end result is that it gives you a competitive advantage over other students who didn’t Study Abroad.
If you have any interest in working for a major corporation, a global brand or maybe even becoming a travel writer *insert wink here* cultural experience is essential. Your competition includes people from all over the world, not just your community.
SpaCIE wishes a very happy new year to all our Partners, students, and friends!! We hope to see you all in Spain in 2020!!
